Confidentiality in Health Care (Essay Sample)

Confidentiality in Health Care
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Confidentiality in Health Care
Patient confidentiality is an essentially ethical and legal duty for doctors and is required for many reasons. Legally, doctors must comply with the laws that control personal information access, use, and disclosure. Even though the laws vary depending on different jurisdictions and healthcare institutions, there are standard rules in the healthcare industry that doctors must follow to protect personal information. Generally, doctors must observe human rights laws, data protection laws, and the common law. By observing these laws, doctors can maintain patient data safety and professional healthcare practices (George et al., 2019).
Besides laws, the medical field has a specific set of ethical standards set by the public, government, and healthcare institutions. These standards are based on various topics, including patient trust, safety, and consent issues (George et al., 2019). As such, doctors must maintain confidentiality to ensure morality in the medical industry. Morality is essential when there is the need to reveal patients’ information. In such cases, doctors must seek patients’ consent before disclosing their personal information. Physicians must also maintain confidentiality to build trust, which, in turn, creates a professional doctor-patient relationship. After establishing trust, patients can seek medical attention without fear of personal data breaches. Furthermore, patients can disclose truthful and relevant information about themselves and their health conditions. Consequently, doctors can provide better and safer health care.
Even though confidentiality is imperative, it is not absolute as it is vulnerable in some circumstance